Each computer is typically associated with a file system for organizing and maintaining files stored (permanently or temporarily) in the computer. Prior to using a file system, the file system must first be mounted onto a mount point. Mounting a file system corresponds to instructing the operating system, which is executing on the computer, to make the file system available to a user of the computer at a specified location (i.e., the mount point).
Before the file system has been mounted, it is typically only identifiable by the raw device name (i.e., the file name corresponding to the physical storage medium) upon which it was created, for example: /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0. The file system may be subsequently bound, temporarily, to a name after it is mounted, where the name corresponds to the path of the chosen mount point, for example, /export/home. However, the aforementioned temporary name binding only lasts for the duration of the mount. Thus, once the file system is unmounted, the temporary naming binding ceases to exist.
In some instances, the temporary name binding may persist by storing the device-to-mount-point association. For example, the Unix File System (UFS) maintains a /etc/vfstab file, where each entry in the aforementioned file includes, among other information, the following information: (i) a device to mount and (ii) mount point. Using the example above, one entry in the aforementioned file would include /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 and /export/home.
In addition to binding a name to a mount point, computer systems include ad hoc functionality to associate properties (e.g., read only, etc.) with a file system. Typically, the association of properties to the file system is done a per-file system basis.